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Five Online Courses that Rocco Becht Could Take at Penn State
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If you missed it last week, there was some hubbub about Penn State transfer quarterback Rocco Becht telling reporters that he’s taking one class this fall, and it’s not going to be inside of a building.
This is from Krutik Jain at Yahoo Sports:
Having already graduated from Iowa State in December 2025 with a communications degree, Becht has decided to skip in-person classes this year in favor of a custom online course created for him.
“I’m in a grad program, organizational development and change program, leadership classes, working in small group type of classes,” Becht said. “So I’m doing that right now. In the fall I’ll have a class that I’m in online and so after that I’ll get a certificate and then I’m able to pursue to my master’s with those 12 credits.”
When asked about which course he wants to study, Becht said:
“I don’t know yet. We haven’t picked it yet. So we got to do that here coming up this weekend for school to start next week. But yeah, so I’m in one class. I guess it’s the props of being graduated and being a fifth year. So yeah.”
This news may have been more impactful before the NIL era, when we foolishly believed that “student athletes” were a thing. Or, at least some of us did. Now they’re professional athletes masquerading as college students on the side, or, in the case of Becht, they’ve already completed their undergrad degrees and simply need to maintain academic eligibility during their 5th athletic year.
Alas, if Becht is undecided on what this course will look like, we have gone through Penn State’s list of majors and present five options:
Turfgrass Science
“…provides students with technical turf knowledge and puts emphasis on planning and implementing projects, directing personnel, communicating effectively, conducting training programs, and managing finances…”
I worked on a golf course with a couple of bozos who had turf management degrees from Del Val. The one guy got in trouble with the superintendent because he was playing Playstation 2 instead of mixing the fertilizer, or spraying chemicals, or mowing the approaches, or whatever he was supposed to be doing.
Becht could conceivably fill his 12 credit hours watching turf scientists rip up the World Cup grass at these NFL stadiums in order to put artificial fibers back in place. His thesis could be titled, “Pure Idiocy – Why Some of the Richest People in the World Make Their Athletes Play on Plastic Surfaces.”
Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies
“This major is concerned with the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean world, including the ancient Greeks, Romans, and the peoples of Egypt and the Near East.“
This one is apropos since everybody was all about The Odyssey this summer. If this was an in-person class, perhaps the teacher would roll out a television on a cart with a VCR underneath. Remember that shit? Then they’d pop in a tape and we’d sit there in the dark watching it.
Becht’s course could involve 3 credit hours of watching Brad Pitt vs. Eric Bana in Troy, then 9 credit hours of Matt Damon sailing around the Mediterranean, to nowhere in particular.
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
“We are committed to examining how the categories of sex, gender, and sexuality are historically informed by intersecting differences such as race, class, disability, ethnicity, and global positioning. We promote feminist engagement and research at all stages of the undergraduate curriculum and challenge the stability of categories such as “woman,” “man,” “female,” or “male,” providing students with the tools to assess identity otherwise.”
Sources say that the professors for this course include Enes “Freedom” Kanter, Lia Thomas, and 2028 presidential candidate Royce White.
Pursuing women’s, gender, and sexuality studies is a very useful degree in 2026. It will help you argue with random people on the internet.
Technical Theater
“The prescribed core curriculum introduces students to each of the theatre design areas and provides them with a basic skill level in technology. The curriculum also features acting, directing, script analysis, theatre history, and criticism.“
Sometimes you wonder if there are classes these guys can take that will actually help them on the field of play. Nutrition and/or physical therapy might be one of those academic areas, because you’re learning all about your body and how to take care of it.
Theater could also help because everything is very dramatic in sports these days. For instance, Week 2 comes around and Becht is running for his life. He’s got Temple’s Curly Ordonez all over him. Becht could flop and roll on the ground and embellish a hit to a receive a 15-yard penalty in exchange. He could pull a Patrick Mahomes and delivery an Oscar-worthy acting job.
Philosophy
“Topics include ethics, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics—study of the good life, justice, and beauty; metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion—study of the nature of reality, mind, body, and the meaning of life and death; epistemology, philosophy of science, and logic—study of the nature of knowledge, truth, objectivity, and principles of sound reasoning; and subjects such as comparative philosophies and world cultures, feminist theory, and philosophical issues in technology, language, education, and the professions of law, business, medicine, communications, engineering, and agriculture.”
Whoah! That’s a mouthful. Reads like Nietzsche towards the end, before he descended into madness.
But he did have some football-related bangers, Friedrich did, among them:
- Which is it? Is James Franklin’s big-game record only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of James Franklin’s big-game record?
- Can a donkey be tragic?—To perish beneath a load that one can neither bear nor throw off? This is the case of Temple athletics in the NIL era.
- The disappointed man speaks:—I sought for great men, but all I found were the people who decided that Deshaun Watson should start for the Cleveland Browns in 2026.
editor’s note: Becht’s father, Anthony Becht, is a Bonner grad who received a degree from the academic powerhouse of West Virginia University
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com